Given Mercy
by Moonbeam7
Summary: Obi-Wan discovers Anakin's betrayal of the Jedi, and must make the most difficult decision of his life.


Given Mercy- Moonbeam  
  
His dreams were growing in magnitude, becoming increasingly vivid, expanding into Technicolor, and mounting steadily towards unnamed horror. Night-sweats became more and more frequent as the days wore on, grinding steadily away, and Obi-Wan would have sworn that he could hear time passing. The Jedi Temple did nothing to wash away his feelings, so even though he found himself deep in meditation at two o'clock in the morning, nothing changed.  
  
Most of his time was spent staring into a data-complex, and it seemed to be taking its toll on his eyes, haunting him with hallucinations- brightly-colored images floating in his vision. But these problems didn't bother him so much as what he was slowly beginning to find, to uncover. He would have preferred, he realized gradually, to have everything remain in the shadows. Maybe forever.  
  
Duty. Duty. A Jedi's life is about duty, and preference shouldn't be factored into the issue. even if it was killing him.  
  
It wasn't Obi-Wan's memories that kept him awake nights, sipping dull coffee from numerous nicked cups, but those nightmarish visions that came to him every time he slept. He had worked out the conclusion long ago that only truth could absolve or reveal guilt, and so he worked on, going less on natural fuel and more and more on the Force, until he collapsed some nights from exhaustion, and the dreams came again. Memories, however, were just as numerous, and just as disturbing.  
  
He had taken care of Anakin for years, ever since that day on Naboo- but no. He didn't want to think about that, didn't want to dredge up that particular memory from the safe place in his mind where it rested. Call it weak, but Obi-Wan wanted to spare himself the images that went with it. Anakin had been his son, in the way that all Padawans grow into their Master's affections, and he'd loved the boy, still did, would still lay himself on the altar for him.  
  
And now, doubts surfaced in his mind, unwilling, dark bubbles in his thoughts, first only tempting him, and then ensnaring him as the evidence grew more and more in favor of the only conclusion left to him.  
  
Anakin had betrayed the Order.  
  
Was he, in fact, in league with the Sith, or had his only betrayal come by rejecting the Code in the matters of Amidala, and his love? Obi- Wan could pass up that betrayal, could let go of it, but the first.  
  
Oh, if it was the first, he didn't know what he would do, and would keep himself from realizing that the first was true until he needed to.  
  
The datafiles before him were not biased. They didn't show him what he wanted to show, only a carefully balanced record. You see, Obi-Wan, they said to him. Anakin was away every time one of the attacks began. He's a murderer, Obi-Wan, a murderer, your precious Padawan is a murderer, and it's all your fault, all your fault, all your fault.  
  
He took a walk.  
  
Not bothering to sling a cloak over his shoulders, he strode in the bitter cold that was the Temple at night, where the normal coolness disintegrated into frigid emptiness that seemed to ice his lungs. There were no other Masters to give him width, but he knew that they would, had they been there.  
  
Because Master Obi-Wan Kenobi was the Master of the Chosen One, and no one in the Order knew that the Chosen One was becoming an instrument of Darkness.  
  
He chose the gardens, and couldn't have said why, unless the Force itself was guiding his steps that night. Head down so that he stared into cobblestones, he drifted through the ethereal, shadowy enclosure that the normally bright meditation spot became at night, and that was when he heard the quiet sound of breathing.  
  
A million impressions dazzled him, awakening him more than he had been in almost a week.  
  
Anakin.  
  
Obi-Wan held himself back for one moment from the painful realization, and then let it hit him, full-force. Denial assaulted his mind, but his rebellious body wouldn't listen, and kept moving forward.  
  
The young Knight, no longer an apprentice that he could coddle, stood there, dressed in black, addressing the transmitter before him, where a shrouded image stood, hazed in blue light.  
  
"Yes, Master. Everything is being taken care of."  
  
"Excellent, my apprentice," the silky voice said into the blackness. "You have done well. all that remains is our vengeance on one particular Jedi."  
  
Anakin's face suddenly became mask-like, but he didn't ask the question that was lingering on Obi-Wan's lips, the eternal, "Who?"  
  
"Master, Kenobi. I think that if he turned. he could be a powerful ally for us."  
  
A sudden, thickening rage filled Obi-Wan, and in his mind, the Force choked around the transmitter, crumpling it into a charred mess. And, as they often have a habit of doing, his daydream turned to reality, and Anakin's eyes fell on him.  
  
Anakin drew his lightsaber first, and Obi-Wan would never forget it.  
  
A crimson blade pierced through the darkness, gracing the young Sith's face with a pale bloody light that turned his beautiful features into a demonic portrait. And Obi-Wan drew his lightsaber, then.  
  
Red. and blue.  
  
They fought for a moment, the clashing blades being less of the fight than the terrible, raging war inside of Obi-Wan. He noticed small openings in Anakin's defense that the younger man was unaware of, and didn't take the advantage of the kill. Instead, he played cat-and-mouse with his former Padawan, chasing him up the steep cliff that the waterfall poured down from. Obi-Wan, knowing it could happen because he had used the strategy before  
  
(and it had ended in another death)  
  
backed Anakin against the gushing waters, and watched with grim satisfaction as the lightsaber shorted out, leaving Anakin Skywalker nothing to fight with but the powers of the Dark Side. And while he felt Anakin reach for them, Obi-Wan stretched out with his own mind and smothered the fuse of power in Light.  
  
Anakin's eyes burned with rage, and his voice in the silence was quiet and full of aching contempt. His body was wracked with exhaustion, and he noticed that Obi-Wan didn't look much better. The Dark Force did not nurture its servants so well as the Light.  
  
"Are you going to kill me now? Or give me over to the Council?"  
  
He waited for the fateful "yes" to drop from Obi-Wan's lips. And he realized, suddenly, how much he would hate to hear it. He had betrayed Obi- Wan. But he didn't want Obi-Wan to betray him.  
  
With one swift movement, Obi-Wan kicked Anakin's lightsaber off the side. It fell down, onto the smooth, but unforgiving rocks below, and the mechanical compartments broke and were revealed.  
  
Anakin wondered if Obi-Wan would like to do that to him.  
  
Obi-Wan stood there, his ignited lightsaber still in his hand, and said, "Run."  
  
Uncertainty traced over the Sith's features. "What did you say?" he asked, dropping the contempt due to pure shock.  
  
"Run," Obi-Wan repeated. "You're a traitor, I trained you, and I can be a traitor, too. Go. You're still my Padawan for now."  
  
"I am a Sith."  
  
The whisper barely reached Obi-Wan.  
  
"I know," Obi-Wan said. "And that cannot be forgiven." Something crushed inside of him. "I cannot forgive myself for making you into one. Run, Anakin, before someone sees you and realizes what you are."  
  
The feeling of being trapped settled in on him, and Anakin turned to flee.  
  
"But Anakin," he heard Obi-Wan say behind him, "next time, I will fight."  
  
"I know," Anakin found himself saying as he descended the rocks, with barely a glance behind him, to Obi-Wan, standing on the top of the waterfall like an ascending hero, or to the smoldering remains of his lightsaber.  
  
At that moment, he could have remembered that Obi-Wan had just betrayed the Jedi to save his life. even if it was just for the moment. He could have remembered that even as he tried to kill Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan had not killed him.  
  
But he didn't.  
  
What he remembered instead was Kenobi's promise that next time, there would be no mercy. And the dull, animal feeling of having nowhere else to go, and hate deepened in his heart, and added to the rage.  
  
So he went on.  
  
The end. 


End file.
